Former President Donald Trump‘s legal woes deepened after he was hit with federal criminal charges linked to his attempts to cling to power after losing the 2020 election.
Trump is facing four counts including conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government and obstruct the electoral count for trying to overturn the 2020 election. The 45-page indictment says he was ‘determined to remain in power’ despite ‘having lost.’
He is already facing 40 federal charges in Florida relating to his handling of sensitive government documents after leaving office, and is due to stand trial in New York next year accused of falsifying business documents after making a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels.
The criminal cases have plunged the country into uncharted legal and political territory, as Trump accuses prosecutors of trying to derail his election campaign.
The latest indictment comes amid a slew of investigations into the events of January 6, 2020, when Trump supporters clashed with police and overran the U.S. Capitol, and the way the then-president tried to overturn the result.
A source familiar had confirmed to DailyMail.com that Trump was informed he was indicted Tuesday afternoon in the January 6 case. Special Counsel Jack Smith is expected to make a public statement regarding the indictment at 6 p.m.
The former president has been summoned to appear before a federal magistrate judge on Thursday in Washington, D.C. There are also six unnamed alleged co-conspirators according to the indictment.
Special Counsel Jack Smith (right) has led the federal investigation into former President Donald Trump and his attempts to stay in power after the 2020 election
More than 1,000 people accused of participating in the Jan 6 riot have been charged
The six uncharged co-conspirators appear to be familiar figures from the House January 6 probe. Co-conspirator 3 is described as an attorney who the defendant privately said sounded ‘crazy’ – a likely reference to Sidney Powell, who advised Trump during his last days in the White House.
The indicted also references a DOJ official who ‘worked on civil matters,’ which could be referring to former official Jeff Clark, who helped draft a letter urging states to return alternate slates of electors.
Co-conspirator 2 is an attorney who ‘devised’ a strategy to leverage former Vice President Mike Pence’s authority.
Trump and his co-conspirators ‘used knowingly false claims of election fraud’ to try to ‘subvert the legitimate election results and change electoral votes’ for Joe Biden, according to the indictment.
They ‘pushed officials in certain states to ignore the popular vote,’ and in turn ‘disenfranchised millions of voters.’
It points to their actions in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, all battleground states that Biden carried that tipped the election his way.
It accuses them of using the ‘power and authority’ of the DOJ to conduct ‘sham’ election crime investigations.
Like the House probe, it identifies the effort to enlist then-Vice President Pence to use his ‘ceremonial role’ to ‘fraudulently alter the election results.’
The indictment states they made ‘knowingly false claims of election fraud’ to ‘gathered supporters’ on January 6 and ‘directed them to the Capitol to obstruct the certification proceeding and exert pressure’ on pence.
It also references the ‘large and angry crowd’ who had been ‘deceived’ by the defendant.
Trump and co-conspirators ‘exploited the disruption by redoubling efforts to levy false claims of election fraud,’ it continues.
The Trump campaign put out a statement calling the indictment another ‘witch hunt.’
The January 6 indictment is ‘nothing more than the latest corrupt chapter in the continued pathetic attempt by the Biden Crime Family and their weaponized Department of Justice to interfere with the 2024 Presidential Election, in which President Trump is the undisputed frontrunner, and leading by substantial margins’ read the statement.
‘These un-American witch hunts will fail and President Trump will be re-elected to the White House so he can save our Country from the abuse, incompetence, and corruption that is running through the veins of our Country at levels never seen before.’
The indictment continues on to say Trump and his co-conspirators ‘knowingly’ made false claims that there had been ‘outcome-determinative’ fraud in the elections. It charges them with ‘prolific lies about election fraud’ including ‘dozens of specific claims’ in states.
They were false, and Trump ‘knew they were false,’ it says.
It notes that Pence ‘personally stood to gain’ even as he told Trump he had seen no evidence of such fraud.
It also touts a slew of top officials who told Trump there was not such fraud.
Trump’s ‘knowingly false statements’ were ‘integral to his criminal plans to defeat the federal government function,’ it says.
It labels as knowingly false statements letters A through F. That included claiming 10,000 dead voters in Georgia and an allegedly ‘suspicious vote dump in Detroit.’
After Nov. 13, when Trump’s lawyers admitted in court they lost Arizona. After that point, they carried out a strategy of ‘knowing deceit.’
Trump previewed that he was expecting to be indicted around 5 p.m. in a Truth Social post Tuesday.
‘I hear that Deranged Jack Smith, in order to interfere with the Presidential Election of 2024, will be putting out yet another Fake Indictment of your favorite President, me, at 5:00 P.M.,’ Trump wrote on his Truth Social account Tuesday afternoon.
‘Why didn’t they do this 2.5 years ago? Why did they wait so long? Because they wanted to put it right in the middle of my campaign. Prosecutorial Misconduct!’
The federal grand jury that was hearing evidence in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election handed up an indictment under seal shortly after 5 p.m. No name or initial was read indicating the identity of the defendant.
The former president added in a follow-up post: ‘Also, why are they putting out another Fake Indictment the day after the Crooked Joe Biden SCANDAL, one of the biggest in American history, broke out in the Halls of Congress??? A Nation In Decline!’
He referred to the testimony of Hunter Biden’s business partner Devon Archer on Monday, who said that then-Vice President Joe sat in on at least 20 business calls with his son and his foreign associates. Republicans are considering launching an impeachment inquiry for the president based on Archer’s revelations and accounts from whistleblowers.
Special Counsel Jack Smith was appointed last year to lead the federal probe.
In June, he brought charges in the documents case while continuing to present Jan. 6 evidence to a grand jury sitting in Washington D.C.
Trump has always denied wrongdoing.
But he revealed a few weeks ago that he had received a letter from the Justice Department indicating that he was a target of its Jan. 6 investigation.
Such letters are generally an indication that the target will face charges.
‘Deranged Jack Smith, the prosecutor with Joe Biden’s DOJ, sent a letter … stating that I am a target of the January 6th grand jury investigation, and giving me a very short 4 days to report to the grand jury, which almost always means an arrest and an indictment,’ he posted on his Truth Social site.
Once again, the former president managed to blow up the news cycle and his 2024 rivals’ plans by revealing the latest legal twist himself.
He added in all caps: ‘This witch hunt is all about election interference and a complete and total political weaponization of law enforcement.’
Smith, whose most recent role was prosecuting war crimes, has cast a wide net over Trump’s efforts to stay in power. That includes examining lawyers who pushed to reverse results, proposals to seize voting machines, fundraising for the Jan. 6 protest, as well as a plan to use a slate of ‘fake electors’ in states won by Joe Biden to upend the certification process.
Jared Kushner (left), Trump’s son-in-law who served as a White House adviser, and Rudy Giuliani (right), Trump’s personal lawyer, have spoken with prosecutors
They interviewed Trump’s vice president, Mike Pence, who was pressured to reject the 2020 result, adviser Rudy Giuliani, and local election officials.
So far, none of the charges appear to have undermined Trump’s dominant position in the Republican Party.
He remains the clear frontrunner to secure its 2024 nomination and has used the indictment to raise money and foment anger among his supporters.
Several rivals even leapt to his defense, part of an elaborate dance as they look to woo voters tired of Trump’s drama while at the same time trying not to alienate his supporters.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Trump should have done more to halt violence on Jan. 6, but said that did not amount to criminal activity.
Trump appeared in Miami’s federal court last month, facing 37 counts in relation to accusations of illegally retaining classified documents at his Florida Mar-a-Lago estate
‘Let me be perfectly clear: I did nothing wrong. I am completely innocent,’ said one.
‘This is just another vicious act of election interference on behalf of the deep state to try and stop the silent majority from having a voice in your own country.’
It is a part of a familiar playbook that has helped Trump raise millions of dollars off each set of charges.
And more legal challenges could follow. Prosecutors in Georgia are also investigating Trump and his allies over allegations of election interference in the state.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Dailymail.co.uk